Short hop up into the mountains to the stunning Lake Atitlan formed in the crater of a collapsed volcano.....all looming peaks, misty waters and tiny indiginous villages dotted around the edge.

We took a water taxi across the well-known hippie village of San Pedro, where, after bumping into Ian and Sue again (!), we settled into our cute hotel overlooking the lake.

Couple of days of chilling followed, watched a movie in the pub, ate tasty organic brownies, updated our ipods with some stolen music and had the best Asian grub since leaving Asia!

Plus spent two nights lazing in the thermal baths. Basically its some pools landscaped to look like natural formations filled with water which is heated in pipes by the sun. Pretty nifty. And super relaxing, especially with amazing stars and a cheeky bottle of vino on the side!

I headed back across the pond to Panachal town for some market shopping where I almost inadvertantly got caught up in a public lynching! Seriously, I couldn't figure out why all the stall holders were all suddenly packing up in panics, I guessed maybe the police were on the their way and they had all stayed longer than they should. Anyhoo, I didn't think anything of it, carried on bargaining badly for that much-needed cushion and then headed back across the lake.

It was only the next morning, we heard that apparently, a huge crowd of well-pissed off locals from a nearby town were coming into Panachal to 'punish' a guy who had kidnapped a girl and had not been suitably punished by the justice system. Apparently this happens a fair bit in Guat, and anyway, it seems noone was waiting around to see what happened....

Time to break for the Mexican border!